Overwhelmed Stockton shelter and its animals getting help from S.F.

STOCKTON - Don't tell veterinarian Sarah Lamborn what can't be done. Just get out of her way.

Kevin Parrish

STOCKTON - Don't tell veterinarian Sarah Lamborn what can't be done. Just get out of her way.

She is at the vanguard of a collaboration that is working to turn the overwhelmed Stockton Animal Shelter into a national model for saving cats and dogs - and possibly influencing human behavior along the way.

The monthly numbers have been staggering: 800 to 900 cats and dogs brought into the shelter, only 100 leaving alive. Stockton's volume exceeds that of Sacramento, a city almost twice its size. A large black dump truck arrives every Tuesday to take away hundreds of carcasses.

The Stockton shelter, arguably one of the worst in California just a year ago, has been adopted by the resource-rich San Francisco Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals.

And a turnaround has begun.

So far, the San Franciscans have spent almost $100,000 on improving the shelter and an incalculable amount on goodwill.

Lamborn is a four-day-a-week veterinarian on loan to Stockton, and her idealism is infectious.

She and Kate Kuzminski, her supervisor and the SF liaison, have added enthusiasm, professionalism and expertise to the Lincoln Street facility.

"This is why I'm a shelter vet," Kuzminski said. "If you can fix this - figure out a recipe for success in Stockton - you can take it someplace else."

Kuzminski is the visionary, Lamborn the agent of change.

Before her, the Stockton shelter didn't have an on-site veterinarian.

Lamborn, who graduated from the University of California, Davis, in June, is a 35-year-old single mother of three. She drives to Stockton from her family home in Orinda. She says she loves it here.

"I am here because there is a huge potential for change. It's happening, and I am part of it."

The number of animals arriving each day is unchanged. But something new is under way.

What's known as "positive outcomes" have sharply improved - cat euthanasia is down 33 percent from last year, dog euthanasia has dropped 13 percent and 20 percent more animals are leaving Lincoln Street alive.

Another indicator is the TNR (trap, neuter, release) rate. Stockton's vast feral cat population is being dealt with aggressively using this practice of returning cats to the wild unable to reproduce. The TNR volume is up 45 percent over 2012.

All this has been encouraging to the shelter's small, overworked staff.

There are seven full-time kennel employees working for animal-services supervisor Pat Claerbout, who arrived two years ago from Sacramento where there are 14.

The Stockton shelter was barely able to keep up with animal intake.

Claerbout said she was stunned by conditions (lack of sanitation, overcrowding, exposure to climate extremes) and by the sheer volume of Stockton's animal population.

But the city was on the verge of bankruptcy when she arrived. Claerbout knew that City Hall wasn't going to be able to help. She started thinking - and looking - beyond conventional solutions.

"I was open to change. Conditions were worse than I thought," she said. "I was pleading for help. It was a real serious problem."

The San Francisco SPCA had been a transfer agency at one time but had stopped the practice because of the diseased condition of animals being sent from Stockton. "I asked them to come back," Claerbout said. "I said, 'Tell me what we can do.' I told them our horror stories."

The society has done more than expected.

"Our eyes are wide open," said Jason Walthall, co-president of the San Francisco SPCA. "This is a long journey, but it is doable and achievable."

Walthall's group has assets approaching $80 million. Its board of directors seems genuinely enthusiastic about helping California's largest bankrupt city with its animal population.

Claerbout, Walthall and Kuzminski agree that the developing partnership is a first in the nation.

"It's incredibly rewarding to know that you are making a difference," Walthall said. "That's how we're wired. It's all about helping and saving the lives of animals. So much good can be done."

Kuzminski, who lives in San Francisco, is the SPCA's director of shelter medicine. She comes to the Valley twice a week. Her vision remains clear.

» Applied best practices. Kennel workers wear gloves in cleaning and caring for the dogs and cats. And they change them between animals.

» Most important, they've added the on-site veterinarian.

"I am not discouraged," Kuzminski said. "One-thousand animals a year are alive because we're here. We can't solve all the problems, but somebody needs to take on the challenges. We might as well try."

Kuzminski has been working hands on at the Stockton shelter for nine months. Her job got easier with the hiring of Lamborn.

"This is a hard job," she said. "It was difficult to get a vet to work at the Stockton shelter. It had to be the right person. Someone who wanted to make a difference and make the world a better place. We needed someone idealistic."

Lamborn was the answer.

"I feel very supported," she said. "The veterinarians in Stockton have been unbelievably welcoming."

In a typical day, she makes the rounds ("contact with every animal"), does disease checkups, gives shots, performs procedures on hurt or wounded animals and stays an hour or more beyond quitting time. "Every day is different," Lamborn said. "My main purpose is to build a shelter medicine program."

Last week, she was involved in her first amputation. A tan Labrador mix with a gunshot wound, needed to have its left rear paw amputated. The one-hour surgery was a success, and the dog was given - at least temporarily - a new name: Philipe.

"Of course, when he's adopted, the new owners can name him whatever they want," Lamborn said.

A year ago, there wouldn't have been much the shelter staff could do to save Philipe.

Like Gandhi, Lamborn sees a direct correlation between the way animals are treated and human behavior. She points out that studies have shown that often where animal abuse exists in a home environment, so does child abuse.

She and Kuzminski also recognize the powerful bond that humans form with their pets.

More than 10,000 animals a year go through the shelter doors. Most of them do not leave alive. Many are malnourished, neglected, sick and wounded. They wind up being put down.

For the first time, the Stockton shelter has a chance to become an exemplary place where they are fed, nourished, treated, healed - and given another chance at life.